The History and Use of Proof in Mathematics

A joint meeting between the BSHM and Oxford University Department for Continuing Education
Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September 2003, Rewley House, Wellington Square, Oxford

 

Raymond Flood

(Kellogg College, Oxford)

Conference Organiser

(Raymond.Flood@conted.ox.ac.uk)

 

 

The programme for this two-day conference covered a variety of aspects of the history and use of proof. Issues addressed included early examples of proof in mathematics, developments in proof, famous problems and the search for proof, software correctness and proof in the school mathematics curriculum.

 

Programme

Saturday 20 September 2003

Sir Christopher Zeeman

(University of Warwick and Hertford College, Oxford)

Proof in Greek Mathematics

Eleanor Robson

(All Souls College, Oxford)

Seeing is believing: visual proof in Asian algebra

Doug French

(Hull)

A hundred years of proof in secondary school mathematics: some lessons for today

Marcus de Sautoy

(All Souls College, Oxford)

The Music of the Primes

©http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/~nick/fom/dusautoy.html

David Lingard

(Sheffield Hallam)

Chinese proofs for the secondary school classroom

 

Sunday 21 September 2003

Alan Slomson

(Leeds)

Hilbert's Proof Theory and its effect on mathematics

Ivor Grattan-Guinness

(Middlesex)

Proof in Applied Mathematics

Robin Wilson

(Open University)

The Four Colour Problem

Donald MacKenzie

(Edinburgh)

Mechanizing Proof

 

Unless otherwise indicated, photographs are ©David Anderson 2003